Everything that's gold does not glitter

Month: December 2015

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Yesterday, I wrote about media outlets that are too squeamish to make references to bodily functions, including even words like “pee” that have made their ways into everyday conversation. Newspapers with “family” sensibilities and radio and television stations fearing censure and fines from the FCC are finding it more and more difficult to operate within strictures that defy the realities of the world about which they are reporting.

Once we get beyond the popularity of slang references to urination and defecation, we get into the territory of what were once known as “cuss words,” many of which refer to genitalia or sexual functions. I should mention that these words referred to those subjects at one time, although today they have largely divested themselves of those meanings, being used primarily for emphasis or to indicate anger or surprise.

I vaguely recall reading that a major American newspaper vowed never to print one of those vulgar words in its pages until such time as the president of the United States used them publicly. It wasn’t long until that very situation occurred and the paper had to eat humble pie.

The fact is that quite a few U.S. presidents have demonstrated their fondness for profanity. Harry Truman, LBJ, Clinton, both Bushes and, yes, President Obama, are among them. Some would argue that use of this type of language constitutes decidedly unpresidential conduct and is inappropriate for anyone supposedly serving as a role model for today’s youth. Whether the leader of the free world is expected to fulfill that function in the 21st century remains a subject for debate.

I must admit that I was a bit taken aback by an article published over the holiday weekend by Phil Bump, a Washington Post political columnist whom I admire and respect. The purpose of the piece was to point out that presidential candidate Donald Trump has a potty mouth, as clearly demonstrated by some of his very colorful tweets. It’s true: The man loves his expletives. If nothing else, they certainly attract attention. The problem, as I learned in writing class many years ago, is that the expletive tends to be all the reader sees. The shock value of such words tends to completely supersede and blot out any point the writer may have been attempting to make.

I’m not surprised that Trump likes to cuss, but I was terribly disappointed with the subterfuge to which Bump had to resort in order to present Trump’s Bluest Hits of Twitter without violating the arcane and laughably out-of-date rules set forth by his newspaper. The plan involved asking readers to solve a type of cryptogram in order to figure out the particular vulgarities used by Trump without the paper having to actually print those words.

“For kicks,” writes Bump in explaining his scheme, “we’ve changed the four swear words we looked at into names. The word beginning with an F is “Frank.” The one beginning with an S is “Sam.” The three-letter word starting with A becomes “Alex,” and the longer, seven-letter variant thereof, “Alexander.”

Bump then coyly quotes some of Trump’s rants on Twitter, substituting the proposed words above for the profanity actually used. WTF?

“Before we continue,” writes Bump, “we will demurely note that The Washington Post tends not to use a lot of cussing on its pages.” No, really? I mean, gosh darn, you could have fooled me. He then goes on to state, seemingly by way of distancing himself from his own folly, that “We are not 10, but if any 10-year-olds read this, their innocent sensibilities will be spared (in case there is some 10-year-old who doesn’t know the f-word).”

I believe that this last sentence, particularly the parenthetical portion, is designed to point out Bump’s awareness of how utterly ridiculous are the rules by which news writers and columnists are bound. Surely it is no surprise to anyone that a demagogue, a self-styled man of the people such as Trump, would speak using the same type of language that (most of) the rest of us do.

That the news media ignore the facts of the modern world, instead opting to sing “la la la la” while sticking their fingers in their ears, is a demonstration of how out of touch they are with reality.

As for you, Phil Bump, quit playing cryptogram games and insist on telling it like it is. If the Post won’t print it, tell them to go Frank themselves.

My coworkers and I had a grand old time and a lot of laughs at our recent holiday luncheon. The highlight of the afternoon was the annual gift exchange. The emcee would pull a name out of a hat and call the lucky person up front to select a wrapped gift from a very full table. Alternatively, if you coveted a gift previously selected by someone else, you could “steal” the gift away. The gifts of alcohol were extremely popular, so it was a good thing that there was a rule that a gift could be stolen only twice.

To add to the hilarity, the emcee started out by informing us that anyone who decided to steal had to either sing a holiday song or tell a joke. If this was supposed to deter the predilection for stealing bottles of vodka, gin, whiskey and champagne, it wasn’t very successful. It was a great rule, however, as the terrible singing and even worse jokes resulted in roars of laughter.

My favorite joke of the day, which the teller admitted she borrowed from her young son, referred to the streets of downtown Sacramento that are named with the letters of the alphabet.

Q: Why is it so hard living on O Street? A: Because you have to go a block to P.

What is funny about this joke, of course, is the double entendre reference to urination. You can’t really go wrong with a joke on this subject. Peeing is always funny, and comedians have been milking the topic for generations.

Before HBO and cable programming generally, you couldn’t make reference to “peeing” in the media without being accused of vulgarity. Even today, over-the-air radio and TV stations have to watch it, as the FCC has been known to impose some pretty steep fines for gratuitous mention of bodily functions. This pressure ultimately sent “shock jocks” such as Howard Stern, who appears to delight in “juvenile” humor about urination and defecation, scurrying to satellite radio.

In this day and age, references to the elimination of human waste are judged to be exceedingly mild, at least in the grand scheme of things. This makes sense in a world in which many give not a second thought to the use of the most demeaning racist and sexist slurs. It’s all relative.

For example, in the various places I’ve worked, I can’t recall ever seeing someone raise an eyebrow at an offhand description of an impending rest room break as “I gotta go potty” or “going to pee.” I admit to stifling a giggle when I see the text abbreviation ggp (“gotta go pee”). I have been lurking around online long enough to remember when this was a way of informing the mates in your chat room why you were going to be afk (away from keyboard). At any rate, I now know that you can tell a joke that refers to peeing in front of fifty of your coworkers and no noses will be wrinkled. And you can guarantee that I will be the first to laugh.

Many moons ago, I spent a couple of years working for a tiny community newspaper in New York. It was a “family newspaper,” both in the sense that the publication was owned by a family and in the more traditional sense of that phrase, meaning that it was unfailingly “G-rated.” The idea was that all members of the family, including young kids and Grandma, should be able to read the paper cover to cover without encountering any word or phrase that might be deemed offensive.

I remember how, in my college days, where I was one of the editors of the student newspaper back in the 1970s, we made a big point of thumbing our noses at this standard by taking advantage of the opportunity to print the most flagrant vulgarities in 72-point headline type on the front page. Protesters (and we protested everything back then) were quite fond of including some very colorful language in their chants, cheers and taunts. Quoting those was a convenient excuse to cuss in a big black headline.

At the staid, conservative weekly newspaper where I was employed in the composing room, however, our problem was not quoting protesters but how to, um, accurately describe the actions for which some of the local loony toonies routinely found themselves arrested. Should we print “public exposure” when really what we meant was “public urination?” I can just see some kid reading the paper when it hit local driveways every Thursday.

“Mom, what’s ‘exposure’ mean?”

“That depends on the context, dear. Usually it has to do with developing photos, like how much light hits the film. But it can also mean freezing to death, like when someone dies of exposure.”

Our family newspaper found itself in a pickle when a trucker got arrested for pulling off the road into a subdivision so he could pee in a bottle. Some kids noticed what the hapless guy was doing. Indecent exposure? Or just a garden variety case of ggp? The guy wasn’t exactly a flasher, but who knows what was in that pea brain of his? Either way, the paper couldn’t get around mentioning that unmentionable, urination. Ha-ha! The joke was on the publishers. “Serves them right for being such prudes” was my first thought as I gleefully typeset the article.

I very much like the approach that my brother-in-law’s mom always took in regard to this subject. As an elementary school teacher for years, she was no stranger to kids who casually dropped references to peeing into conversations to see what kind of reaction they would get. She would always interrupt the kid mid-sentence, interjecting “We all do it!” Never failed to steal their thunder.

One could argue that, even today, we continue to experience some discomfort at public references to elimination of bodily waste, which may explain the use of such infantilized terms as “peeing” and “pooping.” Admittedly, the liquid version seems to be a bit more acceptable than the solid one. Few would be surprised at a fellow employee referring to a “pee break,” but one who was brazen enough to say “I gotta take a dump” would likely be considered vulgar.

Whatever you do, however, be sure to keep the bathroom references off the radio and network TV. ‘Cuz the FCC’s gonna get you if you don’t watch out!

Devotees of the First Amendment need not apply. After all, freedom of speech must take a back seat to protecting the delicate ears of our eight and ten year old children.

I am looking forward to just three days of work this week followed by a four-day holiday weekend. Our shopping is done, and yesterday we finished the wrapping.

Our staging area in the corner of the kitchen with some of the gifts for the nieces and nephews.

Meanwhile, at work, we are eating ourselves into a coma, courtesy of an annual event officially known as A Taste of the Holidays but which most of us refer to by its nickname, Waddle Week. On Friday alone, I stuffed myself with fried potatoes, chips and salsa, popcorn, and fresh blackberries and raspberries. For me at least, the pièce de résistance was the vegan cupcakes prepared by one of my coworkers. Thank you so much, May!

All this followed our holiday luncheon on Thursday. Although I checked in advance and knew there would not be any vegan food, I brought my own and had a grand old time eating, chatting and participating in a gift exchange with my cohorts.

While last year’s Christmas was fairly subdued at work, this year we held a holiday decorating contest that turned the entire floor into a raucous, delightful amalgam of holiday-related themes. I present just a few for your holiday enjoyment.

Yesterday, my wife asked me if I was depressed because we have so little money. Yes, I am, I told her.

As Tevye the milkman pointed out in Fiddler on the Roof, it’s no crime to be poor. I do believe that it’s possible to be both poor and happy, particularly if you appreciate the things you do have and value your family and friends.

The real thing that’s depressing me is the Infinite Loop of Poverty. I feel like a modern day Sisyphus, pushing the rock up the mountain only to have it roll back down so that we have to do it all over again.

All of this was triggered when we decided to purchase a car last week. Not even a new car, mind you. A low mileage used vehicle is all we could manage without going deeply into debt. Which is the point, I suppose: We may not have any money, but at least we’ve managed to stay debt-free.

This wasn’t always the case. When my wife and I got married 17 years ago, we had a lot of debt between us. With two (small) incomes, we worked assiduously to overcome this problem. It took a lot of years, but all the credit card debt and most of the student loans were paid off. I am proud of this, particularly since I suffered two year-long stints of unemployment in the interim and my wife worked part-time for a few years and not at all for another four years.

And so I say to those of you who think you are stuck in debt forever that there is hope. It requires dedication, however, including paying down debts first thing out of every paycheck regardless of what you’d really like to spend the money on. Whatever that may be, it’s probably not as important as watching that big number that you owe get lower and lower.

I am fortunate that my wife is so good with money. I don’t do well with numbers and would rather have someone else think about what has to be paid and when. I suppose this goes back to my childhood, as my parents did not believe in giving “allowances” or in encouraging budgeting and planning. If they thought we needed something, they’d buy it. Otherwise, they’d rather that we didn’t have any of their hard-earned money so that we couldn’t waste it on frivolity.

In my young adulthood, the result of this was not pretty. If my father visited me at college and handed be a twenty, likely as not it would be gone the same day. When I began working, I still lived at home and treated money cavalierly; gosh, I’d get another paycheck the next week, so what was the big deal? I spent it as quickly as I earned it.

All my life, the place where this came back to bite me was cars. Transportation was my bête noire, my Kryptonite, my undoing. I’d use my tax refund to pay my auto insurance. I’d fill up my tank every time I was paid. But the moment something went wrong with the car and I needed a couple thousand dollars to make things right, I was in deep trouble. My father generously purchased a series of high-mileage clunkers for me, none of which lasted very long. When I saved for a new car, my father generously put up some of the cash, or it never would have happened.

Then my parents began giving me their old car each time they purchased a new one. They took very good care of their vehicles, so I knew I’d be in good shape for a few years. One of those cars was wrecked when an old lady ran into me on the way home from work one night. Another was wrecked by my young niece when we lent it out to her. Another had to be sold when it’s engine was about to go, and yet another was a trade-in on the old Cash for Clunkers program.

After owning two cars free and clear for a couple of years, we decided to buy a new vehicle even though we had to finance it. We made some very large monthly payments and eventually paid it off. Now, however, it has well over 150,000 miles on it and little things started going wrong with it. We finally decided to give it to our niece (not the one who wrecked our former vehicle, leaving us with just one car between us ever since), who was desperately in need of vehicle, and to pay cash for a used car for ourselves.

The only problem is that avoiding the interest payments associated with financing meant spending just about all our savings. Hence, my feelings of depression. I must have a car in order to get to work every day. Once there, I work and work to save enough so that we can spend it all to buy another car so that I continue to get to work to make more money to buy another car. It seems to be an endless cycle, which might not be a big deal to a 25 year old, but takes on quite a different meaning to one who is rapidly approaching retirement age. The only way out of this loop is to earn significantly more money or to up the ante on savings. Yes, I do think that saving money faster than you use up your car is the only real answer.

Still, I am grateful that I have once more managed to escape the millstone of monthly car payments with which so many others are saddled. As Dave Ramsey points out on his radio show, taking the scissors to that albatross around one’s neck is a significant step toward financial independence.

I have a lot of vivid dreams. It is almost as if someone has reached deep inside my body, grabbed hold of my soul and then yanked upward violently, turning me inside out like a sweater. Thus exposed, my dreams take me to places I fear to go in the light of day.

Lately, I have dreamed several times of my father’s death. I wake grateful in the knowledge that he is very much alive, fearing the day when I shall dream of him and awake to find that he is just a memory.

My father is 82 years old and I am a grown-up who is very much aware of the circle of life. But, still.

Still.

Visiting my parents for Chanukah, I sat in their family room, reminiscing with my mother over old photographs in oversized albums that filled up her lap and spilled into mine. It seems all of us have been in a reflective mood since a childhood friend of my sister, who long ago was married to and divorced from my first cousin, was found dead in her apartment in New Jersey. No one noticed for a couple of weeks until the smell got so bad that the neighbors finally complained.

Three thousand miles away in California, we had heard not long ago that she was destitute, unemployable, abandoned by her two brothers and her two sons, and about to become homeless. No one knew what could be done for her and now no more needs to be done. I do not know how she died. Somehow, it doesn’t even seem important.

My sister in Texas calls my mother to talk about her childhood friend, now gone. My other sister broods about this while driving and plows right into the car in front of her. There is a lot of damage but no one is hurt, as the police reports say.

They’re right about the damage. I’m not so sure about the other part.

My mother serves potato latkes and she even makes one of them eggless so that her weirdo vegan son can have a taste of Chanukah. She lights the menorah and I don a kippa from a decades old bar mitzvah to recite Ha’nerot Hallalu and sing Maos Tzur, Rock of Ages.

The husband of my mom’s cousin, at the age of 84, announces that he will celebrate his “second bar mitzvah” in April. Although he is a member of three synagogues, none can book the simcha for the Shabbat corresponding to his Hebrew birthdate. And so, nearly four months out, he has begun preparing a different Torah portion than the one he chanted before family and friends 71 years ago.

My bar mitzvah photos turn up in the album that my mother and I are perusing. I look like a total dork in the bar mitzvah suit that cost a fortune and then had to be altered to fit. My father took me into Manhattan for the occasion, Barney’s at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 17th Street.

Photos of my sisters with their friends from elementary school and junior high. Mom doesn’t remember the friends’ names, but I do. The one standing outside the tent is Sharon. Yes, that was the fateful camping trip on which it rained the whole time. No, she didn’t live in our neighborhood; she lived across the street from the school and was a “walker” who didn’t have to face the ignominy of riding the bus. The one with the cat is Debbie, from when we lived in Wappingers Falls. That one is Vitor, the exchange student from Brazil. We trip merrily down Memory Lane until Mom picks up her dying cat and it pees all over her.

Pictures of Dad, decades younger, displaying his chest hair on the beach in Florida. Me as a teenager, with a goofy grin, holding a seashell in Myrtle Beach. My sisters, bundled up in matching hooded parkas, in the snow in front of our house. My very young looking mother in a bathing suit on a chaise lounge at the pool. Me and my grandfather at my college graduation, two months before he died.

Photographic evidence of a life so far in the past that it’s a stretch to believe it ever happened. These Polaroids could just as well be a figment cobbled together into one of my colorful dreams, more real than the real thing.

My parents are discovering that one of the hazards of aging is that everyone you know dies. Parents, siblings, friends. Live long enough and there’s no one left but you.

And as the names are erased from the paper, one by one, with only old snapshots in oversized albums remaining as a reminder, I wonder how I will manage when the very paper itself disappears and, as in my dreams, I am left with nothing but memories and black and white photographs dated AUG 65.

Taffy was lying down outside the sliding glass door to my parents’ family room, so my mother let her cat in. This cat is in bad shape. Despite the furry winter coat, you can see the outline of bones in the sunken profile. The cat attempted to jump up on the couch, but can no longer make the leap successfully. Claws scrabbling momentarily on the edge of the seat, the cat slides back down to the carpet. Mom picks up the cat and lays it across her lap, where we were looking through old photo albums. The cat promptly pees all over her.

Mom lets the cat out before taking a shower and changing her clothes.

My mother’s cat, now 18 years old, is on its ninth life. Although she has taken her pet in to the vet in Fresno on a couple of occasions, she won’t spend the money now that Taffy is preparing to fly up to that big furball in the sky. Indeed, her raspy, labored breathing reminds me of what used to be known as the rales or death-rattle. I bet Taffy has pneumonia.

My sister in Texas had two black and white cats, Cookie and Oreo, and both of them died recently. My niece, who is an adult, took it hard. My sister stayed home from work to comfort her.

Many people who I meet, both online and in person, are surprised that a child-free couple like us has no pets. Surely we bestow our love on a dog or a cat? A songbird? Not even a little goldfish in a bowl?

Nope, nope and nope. Throughout our marriage, we have been 100% pet-free. Part of this relates to the fact that my wife grew up with dogs and I grew up with cats, and neither of us particularly understand the other species. Not to mention the fact that we tend to live in tiny rentals where no pets are permitted.

The bottom line for me, however, is that the love bestowed upon us by our pets for years can never make up for the heartbreak of losing them. I realize that we are missing a lot, but every joy comes at a price. I see what is happening to my sister, my niece and my mom, and I know we have made the right decision all along.

The 14 county employees who were killed by an armed-to-the-teeth couple in San Bernardino this week hit us hard at the state agency where I am employed. Although I did not know any of the people involved, I do have professional contacts in San Bernardino County who emailed me to let me know that all non-essential county offices were closed for the remainder of the week.

This latest horror occurs right on the heels of the terrorist attacks in Paris in which so many lost their lives. Indeed, the media now tell us that the San Bernardino murders had terrorist connections as well.

All the presidential candidates, both Democrat and Republican, have now been addressing the issues of gun control and stamping out terrorism. Perhaps I am too jaded for my own good, but I am not so sure that there is much that can be done about either one.

Let us not forget that we have now reached the third anniversary of the mass murder of innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. And then there was the mass killing in a church in Charleston, South Carolina and so many other scenes of loved ones ripped from us in an instant by bullets.

Most gun murders barely make a blip on the local news due to the fact that, typically, only one or two people are killed, and they are usually family members. Then there is gang violence about which we throw up our hands and chalk up to the breakdown of the American family.

I don’t think there are any easy answers for us. In other countries, ownership of firearms is illegal. Despite the gun lobby screaming that if owning guns were a crime, only criminals would own guns, the murder rate is far lower in most other nations than it is here in the United States. As an article in The Washington Post recently pointed out, Congress will never make any significant move toward gun control due to its effect on liberty interests (in other words, the Second Amendment).

So I guess this means we are stuck. Placed in social context, however, our propensity for murdering each other should come as no surprise. The sad fact remains that there is no longer any respect for life in this country. Any society that sanctions abortion, capital punishment and hunting is obviously just as happy to have dead corpses in our midst as it is to have the company of living beings.

I am constantly appalled by the way we treat animals, from the terrible abuse of pets to the murder of cows, pigs and birds so that we can eat their flesh. But, really, it all makes sense. How can we hope for any respect for our fellow creatures when we don’t even value the lives of those of our own species?